The fragile peace between Egypt and Israel was put to the test last month after Spirit of Shaked, an Israeli documentary film about the Israeli commando unit Shaked during the 1967 War, was aired on Israeli television’s Channel One early last month. The film, directed by Ron Edelist, reportedly showed Israeli soldiers killing 250 Egyptian prisoners of war (POWs) in cold blood after the cessation of hostilities, rather than turning them over to prison camps.

The brutal scenes in the film promptly kickstarted anti-Israel rhetoric. MPs from both the governing National Democratic Party (NDP) and the opposition, led by MP and editor-in-chief of Al-Osboa Mostafa Bakri, called for revoking the peace treaty with Israel and expelling the Israeli ambassador.

Israeli Minister of National Infrastructure Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, who led the Shaked unit during the 1967 war, cancelled a scheduled visit to Egypt after the situation over the film became heated.

Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit met with his Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni in Brussels, requesting that Israel conduct an investigation into the allegations.

“Egypt will see Israel’s position in the next few days and, in light of that position, it will deal with the situation on the regional, international and legal levels if Israel does not move,” Abul Gheit told MENA.

“The Egyptian people and Egyptian society [are] extremely angry, and we hope that the issue will be tackled in a manner that understands and feels that Egyptian anger,” he added.

Mohsen Allam Tahani Al-Gabali paved the way for female judges in Egypt

On the other hand, according to Israel’s daily Haaretz, Livni voiced, “Israel’s concern [is] that certain elements in Egypt are misrepresenting the documentary film Spirit of Shaked, without checking the facts or substantiating what actually happened, with the intent of sabotaging our two countries’ relationship.”

Dr. Mostafa El-Fiqi, NDP MP and chairman of the Foreign Affairs committee at the People’s Assembly, told the press that Israel chose the timing of the documentary very carefully. According to El-Fiqi, Israel’s aim was to raise the morale of its people following the war on Lebanon last summer.

Ederlist has since expressed concern that the basic facts of his documentary have been misrepresented. In an interview with Israeli Army Radio, he explained that the footage at the center of the controversy showed Palestinian, not Egyptian, forces being attacked, and that they were not prisoners but active fighters during a battle. “What happened was that there were (Israeli) fighters waging battle against a retreating (Palestinian) commando battalion,” he said.

Reports of Egyptian POWs killed at the hands of Israeli soldiers are not new. On August 17, 1995, the Washington Post wrote: “Military historian Aryeh Yitzhaki said today that Israeli troops carried out several mass killings in 1967, in which about 1,000 Egyptian prisoners were slain in the Sinai. Yitzhaki, who worked in the army’s history department after the war, said he and other officers collected testimonies from dozens of solders who admitted killing POWs. He said a report on the killings submitted to his superiors lies locked in a safe at military headquarters.”

Another Israeli historian, Uri Milstein, said there were many incidents in the 1967 War in which Egyptian soldiers were killed by Israeli troops after they had raised their hands in surrender.

Kim Piper The faithful gather at the Miracle Tree on the road to Tenth of Ramadan City

“It was not an official policy, but there was an atmosphere that it was okay to do it,” Milstein said. “Some commanders decided to do it; others refused. But everyone knew about it.”

The US STATE Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for the year 2006 chastised Egypt for “serious abuses in many areas,” branding the government’s respect for human rights “poor.”

The report spotlighted limits on the citizens’ rights to change their government, the state of emergency, torture and abuse of prisoners and detainees. The legal system also came under fire for arbitrary arrests and detentions, prolonged pretrial detention, and denial of fair, public trials. The document also noted restrictions on civil liberties in such areas as freedom of speech and press, corruption and lack of transparency, and some restrictions on religious freedoms and NGOs. Discrimination and violence against women were also highlighted, including the practice of female genital mutilation.

The document made an example of the case of 2005 El-Ghad presidential candidate Ayman Nour, whom it claimed was “sentenced on forgery charges to five years’ imprisonment after a six-month trial that failed to meet international standards.”

Associated Press Tempers flare as the ashes in Sayyida Zeinab cool.

Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit was vehement in his reaction to the US findings. “The State Department’s report and its allegations over the human rights situation in Egypt are inappropriate, since the United Nations has not given any state the right to be the guardian of the rights situation in the world,” Abul Gheit told reporters, adding that the document is based on “imprecise and incomplete information.”

In A BID to stand up to self-proclaimed Muslim televangelists, Grand Mufti of Egypt Aly Gomaa last month launched www.fatwaadar.alifta.org for people to view what he says are moderate fatwas issued by Al-Azhar, the world’s most respected Sunni institute. The fatwas can be read in Arabic, English, French and German.

The mufti has been very vocal of late in his criticism of ‘satellite sheikhs’ he says mislead the public by spouting false and uneducated fatwas to the faithful.

“This website will counter those who have made a lucrative business out of handing out fatwas, and who take advantage of Muslims’ need for such a service without taking account of the negative repercussions,” Gomaa told Al-Ahram last month. “The aim is to spread the moderate opinion of the Al-Azhar hierarchy, which reflects the middle ground and moderation in Islam.”

Yosrey Aql Sheikh El-Azhar is alarmed by the increase in urfi marriages.

The mufti told an Al-Azhar committee that terrorism could be nipped in the bud, but only through dialogue. “As long as they are not armed and threatening the population, there is hope to have dialogue,” Gomaa announced. “If terrorists have taken up arms, there is no recourse but to kill them. This is clear.”

The mufti has himself issued a number of controversial fatwas over the past couple of months, making waves when he announced veiled Muslim women need not wear niqab in foreign countries for fear of political reaction and endorsing a recent fatwa by prominent scholar Suad Saleh that encourages women to undergo surgical hymen restoration in order to marry. Raised eyebrows rose even more when he suggested that husbands who insisted on proving their wives’ virginity should also be able to prove their own.

Despite Sheikh Al-Azhar Mohammed Sayed Tantawi’s blessing, and his earlier decree that hiring women as judges is not against Islam, a number of Muslim conservatives have been vocally rejecting the concept in the local press.

The debate flared up again when the Egyptian Judiciary Supreme Council appointed 31 female judges on March 14 to serve in the family, civil and trade courts. The first female Egyptian judge was Tahani Al-Gabali, who was appointed to the Supreme Constitutional Court by presidential decree in 2003. The appointments were hailed by international NGO Human Rights Watch as a “welcome step toward ending discrimination in the judiciary.”

Mahmoud Ghoneim, head of the Commissioners Body at the Supreme Constitutional Court and a member of the National Council for Women, doesn’t see why people should object to women becoming judges. “It’s not against the Qur’an or the Sunnah, so why ban it? This isn’t a new concept to us. In 2003, Tahani Al-Gabali became a judge, and in 2005 we hired two more, and now three,” Ghoneim notes. “The question is, why take small steps in hiring just one or two every now and then, when we need to fill the positions and women were the ones that were qualified for the job?”

According to Ghoneim, women have the right to become judges and are sometimes more qualified than men who apply for the job. After all, he reasons, they went through the exact same education and exams as men. “Why shouldn’t she be hired? What’s the difference between a male and a female judge? I was taught law by a woman. Some people say that they may be too emotional, but some of the major leaders of this world were women, including Margaret Thatcher, Queen Cleopatra and Aisha, the Prophet’s wife.”

According to Ghoneim, Egypt is the last Islamic state to allow women to become judges; he says the country needs to move forward in its understanding of the roles of women in society. In his view, the problem with Egyptian society is that it is not willing to accept change and that people always focus on the negative aspects.

“If I’m an Ahly fan and want others to be convinced of Ahly, I’m not going to lash out at Zamalek. I should speak about how good the Ahly team is instead,” Ghoneim says. “The same goes for women and judges. People will find any excuse to say that women can’t judge.

“These women [now need] to prove themselves capable judges, and I am optimistic that they will do so.”

Judge Abdel Fattah Mourad, head of the Alexandria Appeals Court, reportedly filed lawsuit last month calling for the blocking of 21 websites and blogs. Mourad is well familiar with bloggers and the internet: He is the appeals judge who upheld the four-year prison sentence for blogger Abdel Kareem Soliman that has raised national and international controversy (see “Death to the Pajamahideen,” page 52).

The judge, who himself blogs at www.drmourad.net (down at the time of writing), recently published the book Scientific and Legal Principles of Blogs, which features analysis of intellectual property laws and their religious and legal justification, among other subjects. Soon after, in February 2007, the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (HRinfo) released a statement alleging that Mourad’s book included over 50 pages of content copied from a December 2006 HRinfo report.

On March 2, newspaper Rose Al-Youssef reported that Mourad had filed suit in the Administrative Court calling for 21 websites — among them the websites of HRinfo, the Hisham Mubarak Center for Legal Aid and Kefaya — to be blocked, accusing them of defaming Egypt’s reputation and insulting the president. Egyptian bloggers expressed concern that if the lawsuit is successful, it could set a dangerous precedent for internet censorship.

Afew months ago, it was a very normal tree that grew along the sidewalk on the Masr-Ismailia Road en route to the Tenth of Ramadan City. But when a large branch broke off the trunk, it reportedly revealed three names: ‘Allah’ and underneath that ‘Muhammad’ and underneath that ‘Taha,’ [one of the many names for the Prophet (PBUH)], it became known as the Miracle Tree, attracting droves of visitors from all across the capital. Anyone can walk up and touch the tree or take pictures, but security is around to make sure no one tries to cut it down.

While some have dismissed the awe-inspiring sight as a product of human hands, others have criticized the frenzied mass reaction that ensued. Motorists who habitually take the Ismailia highway are the most concerned. The tree stands less than 50 meters away from a bus, microbus and private car stop just before the heavily populated area of Salam City.

At press time, frustrated motorists had gone to the Ministry of Interior and asked for the tree to be cut down or removed. No details had been released, but rumors say the tree may either be moved or given protected religious status.

Asecurity alert from Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau in late February warned Israeli tourists against traveling to the Sinai Peninsula and advised those already vacationing there to return to Israel. The alert was reportedly in response to an arrest by Egyptian authorities of 23 Palestinians and Egyptians accused of plotting to attack Israeli tourists in the Sinai.

No other country released any such warning, raising questions about the reasons for the Israeli advisory. A senior Western diplomat commented, “It tells you something when Israel makes a statement like this, but we don’t.”

Minister of Manpower Aisha Abdel Hadi has confirmed her ministry has been working to solve the unemployment problem by developing small overseas work bureaus attached to the Egyptian embassies

Speaking at the 34th session of the Arab Labor Conference (ALC) held by the Arab Labor Organization (ALO) in Sharm El-Sheikh in March, Abdel Hadi announced that the new bureaus attached to embassies have already provided Egyptian workers with 135,000 contracts.

On a separate note, President Hosni Mubarak said during the conference that small businesses have managed to provide 283,000 job opportunities in the country and 144,000 abroad.

Held for the second time in Egypt, the annual ALC discusses labor conditions and cooperation in the Arab world. This year’s conference addressed workers’ freedom of movement between Arab countries and the removal of barriers to inter-Arab labor cooperation. A proposal was also made to facilitate business travel by issuing special passports for Arab businesspersons. One suggestion that didn’t go far was ALO’s Director Ibrahim Qweidar’s proposal to impose a $1 duty on every foreign worker in Arab companies — it was rejected by delegates.

Students and professors at one of the nation’s oldest universities were shocked last month by the government’s reported plans to put buildings and grounds at Alexandria University up for sale.

The story began last January when Alex University President Hassan Nadeir Khairallah pointed out to the university board that the 200,000 students, professors and employees who frequent the university daily are one of the main reasons downtown traffic is so congested. Khairallah suggested the university relocate its campus to the farm of the school’s Faculty of Agriculture.

The board members agreed to study the suggestion, but the university’s administration was quick to note that the land and grounds are public property, not that of the university. The suggested sale figure for the property, LE 12 billion, would be put toward a new Alex campus.

Faculty promptly criticized the decision and demanded to see the plans for the relocation; some also questioned the feasibility of building on agricultural land in possible violation of national regulations. Professors and staff were amazed that such a critical decision could reportedly be made so quick — the president of the university had only been in office a few months when he came up with his bright idea, critics groused.

Alexandria University is the second-oldest in the nation (after Cairo University, which was founded as King Fouad University), and many of its buildings are historic landmarks.

The skies lit up over Sayyida Zeinab last month, but it wasn’t a fireworks display that brought people running from their homes. Onlookers reported that they saw tear-gas canisters being thrown into their neighbors’ homes — payback, they surmised, for the stones thrown earlier that day at a Ministry of Interior official surveying the site of a lethal fire, thought to have been caused by a gas cylinder explosion, which gutted the homes of some 300 squatters hours earlier.

For its part, the Ministry of Interior argued it was only responding in kind, and announced that it had arrested five of the assailants. The men, three of whom were injured at the riots, are currently in jail awaiting charges. All claim they were trying to stop bulldozers they believed were sent in by the government to demolish the remaining shacks. While the five spent the night behind bars, some 50 families braved the Khamaseen winds and rains at Qalaat El-Kabsh, their only shelter being a single blanket given to them by the government.

Khamaseen wind and sandstorms helped spread two other fires in Old Cairo shantytowns that night, leaving tens homeless but no one injured.

Meanwhile, local press reports announced that Cairo Governor Abdel-Azim Wazir’s plans to demolish areas that cannot be developed, (i.e. slums and shantytowns), are ongoing. Sixty-eight areas were singled out for demolition and relocation, among them Qalaat El-Kabsh, whose residents complain that they have not been granted alternative housing. Wazir told newspapers that 88 apartment blocks were being readied for the relocated families and that he was personally looking into applications. Anyone who does not have a right to be relocated, he warned, would be subject to legal action.

The British baronet behind the agreement that divided the former Ottoman empire into small, weak and dependent states at the end of the First World War did not live to see the effect his infamous pact brought upon the Middle East.

Sir Mark Sykes died in his hotel room in Paris in 1919 while representing his country at the Paris peace conference. He died of Spanish bird flu at the age of 39.

Researchers hoping to find a cure for a feared bird-flu pandemic were granted permission to exhume the politician’s body, almost 90 years after his death.

Sykes’ body, which was buried in a sealed lead coffin, is expected to be well-preserved enough to render usable body tissue. These samples could provide a clue to curing the current strain of bird flu, H5N1, which is very similar to the H1N1 strain that killed 30 million in 1918 and 1919.

John Oxford, head of the research team and professor of virology at St. Bartholomew’s and the Royal London Hospital, in the Queen Mary’s School of Medicine and Dentistry, said only five tissue samples exist from this period, but none came from a lead coffin.

All of Sykes’ six grandchildren gave their consent, as has the chancellor of the diocese of York and the Reverend Marie Teare.

Oxford will be able to carry out the exhumation after he receives a license from the United Kingdom Home Office and his research ethics committee. Sykes’ tissue will provide rare insight into how the avian flu kills its victims, something researchers still do not fully understand. (MJ)

Feminist writer Nawal Al-Saadawi is rarely out of the news, and barely a year passes without some detractor or another calling for her head, quite literally. The former political prisoner, presidential candidate and director of Egypt’s public-health sector (before being sacked for authoring Women and Sex in 1972) is once again in hot water for her ‘subversive’ opinions.

After publicly siding with her daughter, Mona Helmy, who suggested last year that children be named after their mothers, not necessarily fathers, both she and Helmy were sued by lawyer Nabil El-Wahsh for denouncing Islam.

Sticking around only long enough to attend her scheduled interrogation at the prosecutor’s office, Al-Saadawi departed for Brussels, “disgusted” by the way the powers that be were trying to muffle intellectuals.

In telephone interviews with local newspapers, Al-Saadawi brushed off accusations that she had fled the negative publicity, stressing that she had only left to take up a six-month teaching position in the United States and put the bad experience behind her.

But it seems there’ll be no peace of mind for the author of over 30 books, many of which have been at some time banned or censored. At press time, all copies of her latest work of fiction, God Resigns in the Summit Meeting, had been pulled from bookshops and newsstands. Local newspaper reports carried the story that Al-Saadawi’s publisher had the copies recalled and destroyed in the presence of the security police once readers’ reactions indicated it offended religious sensitivities.

Late last month, Al-Azhar was reportedly preparing to sue the writer for the work, which it has branded blasphemous.

“My book contains nothing offensive to religion,” Al-Saadawi told the press . “A work of art should be judged by the critics, not religious clerics or government bureaucrats. Since when do men of religion pass judgment on art? That is something for critics to do, not them. It is a piece of fiction and fiction has no limits.”

Al-Azhar, which maintains that she consistently insults religion with her works, has previously recommended the banning of two of Al-Saadawi’s novels.

The local press has viciously attacked her, with Rose Al-Youssef branding her “supposed exile little more than a media stunt for her massive ego, so she can continue publicizing her agenda of hatred for society and religion and anti-male racism.”

SAying it is attempting to bring the concept of national identity to the forefront, the Ministry of Education has issued a decree that forces international schools to teach Egyptian history in the Arabic language, according to a ministry spokesperson contacted by Egypt Today.

While the schools are free to also teach any other history they choose in any language they wish, they will be obliged to teach Egyptian history according to the ministry’s curriculum. The decision will be implemented as of the next school year.

History professor Ragia Abd El-Wahab strongly supports the decision, saying that studying Egyptian history is essential.

“How can they feel for their country when they don’t know its history or its language? How can they feel love or a sense of belonging? How can an Egyptian not know the nationalists who freed Egypt and gave it its independence?” she questions.

A historian for 31 years, Abd El-Wahab has taught history at many universities, including the American University in Cairo (AUC). She says that many students at those schools and universities, including her own grandchildren, know little about their own history.

Flipping through her grandchildren’s textbook entitled World History, Abd El-Wahab found one chapter dedicated to each country. “The chapter about Egypt only included Pharaonic history,” she complains, “and this is all they are taught about Egypt, and it stops there.”

Students of international schools here often graduate without any background knowledge of their own country. By the time they obtain their university degrees, they have no sense of belonging and so, no enthusiasm to find out what is going on around them or make a change, says Abd El-Wahab.

“If I don’t know the history of my country and my language, I can’t be patriotic,” emphasizes Abd El-Wahab, who worries that those same graduates often want to flee the country and go live abroad where they can relate more to the language, history and culture they’ve studied.

“They feel they don’t belong because they were brought up in an American or foreign atmosphere and culture,” she continues, “and they know nothing about their own country and they hate it. all they know is that they step out of the [school building] and they see dirty streets, very different mentalities characterized by inflexibility, ignorance and narrow-mindedness.”

Although relatively few students attend international schools, Abd El-Wahab thinks they’re a very important, and well-educated minority who can add a lot to the country.

“We are losing a handful of bright young flowers of our future; this is a very big loss,” she laments. “Instead, we have to take advantage of these schools and we have to nurture these students to keep them home because they are Egypt’s future. [Sadly], 70 percent of them do have a negative attitude.”

The historian says that students of the national Thanaweya Amma system are no better when it comes to knowing their history as they often forget it by the time they graduate university. To combat this, she thinks it is essential to offer a general history course in college as a refresher.

In addition to curriculum changes, last month the Ministry of Education also decided to set a minimum monthly salary for teachers of LE 530. The ministry announced it would set aside LE 1.55 billion to give all teachers, including temps, a teaching bonus of 50 percent of their current original salary, which currently ranges between LE 70 and LE 225, in addition to their annual salary increase.

(NS)PRESENTED, the Ambassador of the Year Award to Nabil Fahmy, Egypt’s ambassador to the United States. Fahmy was honored by the National US-Arab Chamber of Commerce (NUSACC) last month in Washington, DC for “doing an extraordinary job of building relationships and promoting the commercial interests of Egypt.”

In his acceptance speech, Fahmy highlighted the role that the Egyptian and US private sectors are playing to promote increased trade and investment. These increases, he said, “are truly a function of the business communities working together.”

NUSACC, which aims to promote, support and strengthen US-Arab business and economic cooperation, has just released its 2007 Outlook report with the subtitle US Exports on Track to Reach $45 Billion. The study states that in 2007 Egypt’s GDP growth is expected to reach 6 percent and that the nation will import $4.4 billion in US products, making Egypt America’s third-largest export market in the Arab world.

(Egypt has announced that trade jumped 40 percent in 2006 and investments rose 37.5 percent. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Egypt surpassed $6 billion in 2006, up from $2 billion in 2004, with 70 percent coming from outside the Arab world.)

NUSACC’s Ambassador of the Year award is presented annually to a member of the Arab diplomatic corps for outstanding contributions to US-Arab commercial relations.

DIED, businessman Mostafa El-Beliedi hours before a meeting scheduled with Banque du Caire to discuss his LE 148.5 million debts. El-Beliedi’s assets were frozen in 2000 after it was discovered he had secured loans and credit facilities without adequate collateral. El-Beleidi was a successful businessman until the beginning of 1998 when he was forced to sell his franchise rights for the domestic distribution of Marlboro cigarettes. After several unsuccessful ventures, El-Beliedi fled to the US, but returned earlier this year to settle his debts.

REVISITED, the validity of urfi marriage (informal marriage without religious sanction) in Islam. Al-Azhar last month moved to collect all religious discourse on the practice, which they feel has reached alarming proportions. In an effort to bring the spread of urfi marriage under control, a panel was being convened to address the urfi marriage document easily obtainable on the market and to call on parents to facilitate financial matters for youth looking to marry.

BACK on the team, Zamalek’s Mahmoud Abdul-Razeq ‘Shikabala.’ Shikabala was cleared by the international football governing body, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), to play with Zamalek via an interim international clearance, after a tug-of-war between Greek team PAOK Saloniki and Zamalek. Shikabala had signed with PAOK Saloniki, but Zamalek declared that they needed him back. When the Greek side refused, Zamalek went to FIFA claiming Shikabala could not leave Egypt before finishing his three-year military service. Zamalek was not so lucky at last month’s African Champions League championships, crashing out of the competition in the second round, tying 2-2 with Sudan’s Hilal.

DISCOVERED, a cache of weapons containing TNT, landmines and rockets in central Sinai last month. Egyptian security forces orchestrated the sting, in which they arrested nine locals thought to be Islamic extremists. At press time, interrogations were still being conducted, though there were uncorroborated reports of foiled plot attempts. Since 2004, Sinai has been the target of a series of terrorist attacks that have claimed dozens of lives.

1billion pounds, the budget set aside for revamping the Helwan to El-Marg metro line. The Metro Authority announced that the line, the first to start operating in Egypt over two decades ago, will get three to eight new passenger trains plus a complete maintenance overhaul.

73,the number of Egyptian fishermen rescued 215 kilometers north of Salloum on the border with Libya. After a system shutdown on their boat, the crew managed to make contact with rescue services in Malta and Greece, which alerted a nearby fishing vessel to save the men. They arrived safely at the Port of Alexandria several hours later.

13,the number of Egyptian prisoners released from Iranian prisons last month. The men, all of whom hold university degrees, were detained last month but released soon after Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs intervened on their behalf. The ministry released the names of the freed prisoners but not their alleged crimes or any further details.

43million pounds, the bill racked up by Saudi Prince Turki bin Abd El-Aziz after his extended stay at the Ramses Hilton hotel. The prince, now lodged at another five-star facility in Sixth of October City, failed to cough up the cash for the 85 suites he and his entourage had been using since July 2006. The Hilton has taken steps to file suit against the prince, but at press time rumors were unconfirmed that Saudi heavies had contacted the hotel to pay back the dues and settle in exchange for charges being dropped.

24million pounds, the budget for a new town for artisans in the Upper Egyptian city of Sohag. Governor of Sohag General Mohsen Al-Noamany announced last month that 383 workshops would be built and utilities such as water and electricity installed within the next six months.

The media blitzes against me are like the flu. They are not an important issue in my life. There’s a good relationship between me and the press, even if it is sometimes one-sided.

The unemployment rate is approaching 10 percent, but exaggerating figures is not the solution to the crisis my advice to citizens is ‘Don’t tighten your belts, but ‘ala ad lehafak med regleik.’

Supporting Iran against the US is a religious duty.

The hysteria or craze of religious satellite channels is a dangerous threat to the Arab world.

Authorities can’t tell the difference between a loft, which is an internationally-compliant home for race pigeons, and a chicken coop on a rooftop.